


it's me for the urn, you for the jar

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Blood and Gore, F/M, M/M, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:11:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5042488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Removable Heart AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's me for the urn, you for the jar

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [От сердца одни проблемы](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8412718) by [Petro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petro/pseuds/Petro)



> the derivative of the headcanon [saltstreets](http://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets) and I thought up during a long emotional discussion abt gerlonso one night, where Stevie goes around murdering all the players that left liverpool and burying their hearts on the halfway line in Anfield. This is ....basically that, but with less murder, and possibly on the same level of disturbing. Oops. It's close enough to October 31st!

 

 

People think Steven gave his heart to Alex when they got married, but this was not true.

 

-

 

He'd had a synthetic one made for the wedding. Unorthodox, but people would talk if he hadn't made a show of swapping hearts with the love of his life. So there it was, hanging on a thin chain on his wrist, pulsating gently. He clasps the lock for Alex, thumb gently resting against her pulseless wrist as she, in turn, ties her own heart to his.

She smiles at him, and Steven smiles back. Steven's mum starts crying a little, and Steven ducks his head, a little embarrassed but mostly to hide the stupid happy grin on his face. They kiss in front of the priest, and everyone stands up, cheering.

After the ceremony he gives her heart back to her and watches her carefully peel away the flesh on her chest and slide it in place. He chucks his own fake heart, already dulling and dead, in to the bin by the door.

“I'm sorry,” he says.

“I know,” Alex replies, not looking at him. She's looking at her own reflection in the mirror, no doubt wondering if it would leave a scar. Steven stands up and moves closer, encircles her waist with his arms as he bends down to kiss her.

 

 

 

(“It's not because I don't love you,” he'd tried to explain, before, when he'd told her he couldn't give her his heart because he didn't have it anymore. And she'd just looked at him, rather knowingly.)

 

-

 

Michael happens first. Michael had always, as it was, happened first. Steven did it with a steak knife. 

 

“Don't lie about it, Michael,” Steven says. Michael had said something along the lines of _It's just a rumor; nothing's confirmed._

Steven feels vulnerable, sitting on the edge of Michael's hotel bed. Michael was about to eat his room service meal, but then Steven had started talking, and the steak was congealing on the plate. Steven wants to hurl it at the wall, watch it splatter on the yellow paint.

“Don't do it,” he says, and Michael shakes his head.

“Stevie,” he starts, and stops. “Stevie.”

Steven looks at the bright dull-edged blade in Michael's hand, clean steel reflecting his own face. He looked like the dictionary definition of _heartbroken,_ which was ironic, he supposes. He takes it from Michael's unprotesting fingers. He pushes up Michael's shirt. He sets the point of the knife at the tip of Michael's sternum and presses down.

Michael doesn't make a sound. He bites his lip and grips the bedsheets with clenched hands and stares, transfixed, at Stevie making a terrible job of getting his heart out of the cradle of his ribs. Steven's never done it to someone else before, so it was messy. There's blood everywhere, but Michael seems fine. They stare at it together, after, gently pulsing on Michael's bedside table. The steak's forgotten. There's three bloody roses blooming on the bedsheets.

“What are you going to do with it?” Michael asks, finally. Steven shrugs.

“Will I get it back?” Michael asks.

Steven looks at him. “Will you come back?”

They don't answer each other's questions, because they knew the answer for both would be the same, and that was it, really.

 

Steven doesn't call him till years after. After Michael signs for Manchester United. He doesn't pick up the phone. Steven wants to call him a fucking _coward_ , a fucking _traitor_ , but he's not twenty-four and aching anymore. Instead he says only: “Didn't think you would. Good luck anyways mate.” And hangs up.

 

(He still has that memory of it, the slack jawed dazed look on Michael's face, the feel of Michael's heart in his hands, slippery as a fish with blood. The way they left the bloody sheets on Michael's bed and slept in Steven's, shoulder to shoulder.)

 

-

 

When Fernando leaves for Chelsea, Steven goes to the knife section of the convenience store. There's about twenty different kinds in the culinary stand, steak knives and boning knives and oyster knives. No knife to harvest a heart, though. Steven picks something that looks sharp enough to make it quick and painless. Pain wasn't supposed to be the point, no matter how terrible it was to see Fernando in blue.

 

“I can't give it to you, Stevie,” Fernando says. Begs, really, with those doe eyes. “It's- important. To me. I need it.”

“I know,” Steven says. And also, “I'm not asking, mate.”

He walks closer and Fernando backs up against a wall.

“It'll be quick,” Steven promises, and noses up against Fernando's neck. He can feel Fernando's pulse under his jaw, beating in triple time.

 

Steven carves his heart out carefully, but it was messy, anyway. Fernando's heart proves stubborn, unwilling to be parted from its owner.

Fernando's face is white when he's done. Fernando will live, of course. He'll fill up the emptiness, or he'll try to, with the songs they'll sing for him at Chelsea or the trophies they win or a golden ball, even, if he ever wins it. Steven doesn't regret it. A fair price to pay.

 

(He does regret it, seeing Fernando's face later with that drowned and lost look, like no matter how hard he tried he'd lost it, the magic that made him work. Fernando's name now synonymous with a joke. Fernando in blue, a pale faced imposter to that laughing boy under the sun in Anfield, with his heart beating fierce under Steven's palm.)

 

 

-

 

Luis is waiting for him when Steven comes for his heart, sitting at the kitchen table. He's staring, contemplatively, at the heart in his hand. There's a jagged, uneven line across his chest, a smear of blood on the underside of his palm.

“I want you to have this,” Luis says, seriously. His eyes flit up to Steven's.

“I would've taken it anyway, mate,” Steven says, sitting down heavily in the opposite chair. He frowns at Luis. “I thought you'd have given it to Sofia.”

“She has something more important than this.” Luis says, dismissive, and hands over his heart. Steven takes it, confused. Was there anything more important? He couldn't think of anything.

“It's not a real sacrifice, for you, is it,” Steven asks, suddenly understanding.

“No,” Luis admits, showing all his teeth in a grin. His eyes crinkle at the corners.

 

“Stevie- do you eat them?” Luis asks casually, at the door. Steven blinks.

“No,” he says slowly. “I don't.”

Luis shrugs, and shuts the door behind him.

 

(Luis does very well in Barcelona. No one could tell he was missing a heart. Steven tugs him in very close when they meet again in Los Angeles, smiles to himself as their empty chests press together.)

 

 

 

-

 

He doesn't take Xabi's heart when he leaves. Carra sidles up during one of the first training sessions after Xabi's departure, faking nonchalance.

“I didn't do it,” Steven says, raising his leg for Carra to stretch.

“Why not?”

Steven considers. “I don't know. It's too soon.”

Carra snorts. “Michael told me you had his heart out before he even signed the papers for Madrid, so that's no excuse.”

“He told you that?” Steven asks, surprised. It had felt like a secret. “Who else did he tell?”

“Just me, mate,” Carra says. He pauses, Steven's leg propped on his shoulder. Steven felt discomfited and too vulnerable. “You going to do it to me too?”

Steven looks at him. _I don't have to._ He wants to say. _I know you already-_

“No. I know yours is buried under Goodison Park.”

Carra's surprised in to laughter, and he swears at Steven until Steven laughs too, and the moment passes.

 

 

So he'd let Xabi leave with his heart intact. He'd watched Xabi play in Real Madrid, watched them lift trophy after trophy and wondered, a little bitter, if he should've ripped out Xabi's heart when he'd had the chance.

And so because he'd made a mess of things and it's five years too late, Steven asks this time. Xabi smiles at him faintly, arms folded over his bare chest. They're in a hotel room after the charity match, because old habits are hard to break. Xabi rummages around in his bag on the floor and hands over a knife, still in it's plastic packaging.

“I thought you might ask,” Xabi says, and Steven kisses him.

He's almost – not afraid, really, but something close- that Xabi wouldn't have a heart when he carefully peels back the skin and bone.

He had no idea why he thought this, only that he did. But it was right there, nestled in the concave space, bathed in bright arterial blood. Steven doesn't make a mess of it this time. Maybe third time's the charm. Steven reaches out and touches it, very gently, and Xabi drops his forehead on Steven's shoulder, shuddering.

Steven pulls and Xabi's heart comes loose, easily.

“Get it stitched up properly later,” Steven says. “Or it'll leave a scar.” He's still holding Xabi's heart, the blood running warmly down his palm and over his wrist.

Xabi looks at him and says, “Where is yours, Stevie?”

Steven looks at him. Xabi nods, as if his answer's been confirmed. Steven watches him put his shirt back on.

At the door, Steven kisses him again and rests a hand above his chest.

“Xabi-” he starts, not sure what he was about to say.

“Stevie,” Xabi says, and his eyes looked very bright. Steven wants to ask him to stay, although that bridge was long burnt. But then he'd asked for the second best thing and gotten it, so it was worth a try at least.

Xabi says no, but then, that was only to be expected.

 

(He stares at Xabi's heart, later. It beat steadily in the box. He wants to keep it. _Oh,_ Steven thinks. So that's why he'd waited so long.)

 

-

 

 

He has no use for it, anyway. Steven didn't want to prop it in a box and bring it out from time to time, stare at it and think about what they could have had. He couldn't put it in his chest either. It wouldn't be fair for Xabi's chest to be empty when Steven's wasn't. And there was no space, anymore. It's been too long. (There was this, instead. A city. A stadium. Fist sized, it beat in rhythm to the crowd on match day.)

 

So in the end he does to Xabi's heart what he did to all the other hearts.

 

He brings it to Anfield and cuts a small square in the turf at the center circle. He digs a ten inch deep hole in the soft dark dirt, and he gently lowers Xabi's heart in to it. It looks small and vulnerable as he covers it with soil. Steven stands up, dusts off his knees, and carefully presses the grass back down.

 

Then he leaves it and walks back, through the red door, up the stairs, whistling.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and Happy Halloween <3


End file.
